On What Would Have Been His 87th Birthday, Chinua Achebe is Google’s Doodle Today!

Chinua Achebe is Google Doodle today! The Things Fall Apart writer is being celebrated by the tech giant on what would have been his 87th Birthday.

The late Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, considered the father of modern literature, has such literary prowess that is second to none still.

His classic novel, Things Fall Apart, published in 1958, has sold more than eight million copies and been translated into more than 50 languages. His other novels included A Man of the People and Arrow of God, several short stories, poems and children literature.

Writing amid a post-colonial movement that saw African nations cast off decades of foreign rule and seek political sovereignty, Mr Achebe lent a voice to a generation of Africans who refused to be defined solely through the lenses of European thought.

Part of that work involved telling distinctly African stories from the perspective of African characters, helping to forge a literature that — like newly created countries — was independent from Europe.

In the years before his death on the 21st of March 2013, Chinua Achebe had lived and worked as a professor in the United States most recently at Brown University in Rhode Island.